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The Top 10 Mistakes Webmasters Make: How to Avoid Them!
By Kath Blackwell
#5 - "No regard for retention."
This mistake goes hand in hand with knowing your statistics. If your traffic is converting - but not retaining - then all the bells and whistles should be going off, telling you that there is a problem. Obviously your sales techniques, your tour and your processor are doing their job - but it's your members' area that is lacking in whatever-your-traffic-desires to motivate them to renew their memberships.
Years ago - in the days of the "plentiful surfer" - paysite owners thought only about the initial sign-up sale, and rarely about keeping their members happy and recurring. Unfortunately, in today's market, webmasters don't have that luxury. Making the most out of each and every surfer - and out of each and every member - is more important than ever before.
#4 - "Not taking the time to learn the basics."
Definitely earning a position in the ultimate Top 5 - there's no way that anyone could call him or herself a webmaster if they can't even master the basics. With all of the HTML WYSIWYG Editors out there, it's really tempting to take the easy way out and never ever learn basic HTML Web page building. It might be considered old-fashioned by today's standards to build pages from scratch in a notepad program, featuring photo galleries and graphics created in PhotoShop, but having that fundamental knowledge, that basic understanding - can be helpful to even the most tech-savvy webmaster in many ways.
Beyond page design, other basics necessary for success would be getting an understanding on how the entire adult online industry is set up. Finding out about basic necessities such as hosting, processing, traffic generation, targeting, filtering, using an affiliate program and getting listed in the search engines - all of these things might seem basic and simple to the trained webmaster. But getting the experience of working in these areas - learning how they are all intertwined - gives the webmaster an insight into how things are done, how goals are accomplished, and helps them to identify what they need in order to begin, launch, improve or duplicate their own sites.
Sure, you can hire someone to take care of all of these basics for you - it's true. But, the smart entrepreneur knows his business and understands what is necessary to make his business run on all levels. If you don't know how it works, how can you ever expect to make it work for you?
#3 - "Not matching the content to the niche."
I've preached on this until I was blue in the face… How many times have you visited a website that promised one thing, yet delivered another? A site that is billed in the search engines, in its title, URL or logo as targeting a specific niche should also have the content within the site - and inside the members' area - identified with that particular niche. You wouldn't pay to see "lesbian lovers" and be happy to see straight couples' sex on the inside with maybe a 10-count image gallery of faked lesbian photos thrown in for good measure - would you? Neither would your customers. This is related to retention, but also falls in to the category of understanding, researching and presenting your niche well. If you don't get it - don't do it. It's as simple as that.
Other ways that webmasters misunderstand or improperly promote a specific niche is by having a site that features, let's say, gay-theme content, logos, text and teasers. However, on the gallery pages the webmaster features banners to affiliate programs that are anything BUT gay-related. When it comes to free sites or cross sells to other programs, you need to choose affiliates that compliment the theme or niche of your site. You wouldn't mix extreme fetish images into a gallery of softcore, lingerie-babe images - why would you add banners that had nothing to do with the targeted niche and expect them to convert?
When you plan out your sites - free, pay or traffic-related - you should make a list of sponsors or programs that promote sites, and have targeted banners for the niche that you are focusing on in your design. Giving the customer what he or she wants is always better than confusing, frustrating or pissing them off. Use the KISS theory - Keep it Simple Stupid - and coordinate your banners, galleries, images and site design to work under a single niche umbrella- and watch how much better your sales convert and your members retain.
#2 - "Not optimizing your site for search engines."
SEO - or Search Engine Optimization - has become a huge topic in recent years, as more webmasters are taking the time to make sure that their sites are properly optimized for the best results and rankings in the engines. Years ago, the skills discussed most involved finding new ways to cheat the engines, SPAM keywords and get higher rankings as a result. Unfortunately, the more ways people found to cheat the system, the more ways the system found to fight back.
Today, it's better to visit educational sites geared toward learning how to work within the rules and preferences of each individual engine, and get higher rankings based upon honest keyword relevance, targeted use of text within the site, and simple use of meta tags and descriptions. There are also many SEO companies and services available that can analyze your site and evaluate its performance on the engines, to see if it can be improved to achieve a higher ranking under important keyword search terms.
No matter what your budget, there's no excuse for not exploring the world of SEO and doing everything you can to increase your rankings. You don't need to pay someone to do it for you where there is so much available on the Web to help you understand how to work the engines effectively. When it comes to getting good, solid rankings, sometimes time, patience and education are the best friends a webmaster can have.
#1 - "Not making a business plan before getting started."
It might not sound like much, but a business plan can mean the difference between failure and success. I'm always reminded of the old Microsoft slogan, "What do you want to do today?" when I think about creating an effective, well conceived plan. What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve? How much do you want to make? These are all very important questions, questions every webmaster needs to ask before even building one, simple page.
If you want to try your hand at building a paysite, you will need a plan. You will need to find out what needs to go into your tour, what you need to do to get a processor for your sales, and how much content will be needed to build an ample membership area. You will need to speak with a lawyer, talk with an accountant - and hire one of each - to help you keep on track legally and financially before you open your site for business.
Whatever part of the business you want to get into, you will need a plan. You need to research, ask questions, visit other sites and find out what is necessary to help make your plan succeed. You need to budget, hire experts, find out about legal limitations or restrictions that might be placed on your type of site or program… there is much that you will need to know and understand before you can begin.
Too many times people hear about the successes of the Internet and just decide to jump in with both feet and their life savings - but without a clue on how to get started. Starting a business - any business - is an investment, an investment of your money, your time and your future. If you want to find success you need to treat it like a business, and that means having a solid plan of action. Consulting with experienced webmasters; companies, attorneys, accountants and other professionals can really help you to overcome obstacles before they ever even get in your way.
Coming Out on Top!
Whatever your obstacles, your mistakes or your own personal regrets about how you've run your business thus far, or about things you wish you'd taken the time to do, each and every experience is unique and original. Your experiences can be helpful to other webmasters - but maybe not in the way that you might imagine. And the experiences of others can be helpful to you.
You'll never be able to avoid ALL the pitfalls and mistakes that are destined to come your way - but you can be sure to learn from them, improve your business knowledge, and make each and every one of them count. Each new experience, contact, mistake, failure, success or idea contributes individually toward your ultimate cumulative end result. Taking the time to learn all you can, try new things, and experiment with alternative methods every now and again can make all the difference.
PART ONE: Top Mistakes
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